Interview with Stereophonics from Issue 2 of Welsh Bands Weekly, Summer 1997

1997 looks like it's going to be a year to remember for Stereophonics. They've played with everyone from Kenickie to The who - via Manic street Preachers - and were the first band to be signed to Richard Branson's new label, V2, on which they've released two excellent singles so far with a third due in August.

What have you got planned for the rest of this year?

Richard: "We've got loads of festivals lined up - Phoenix, T in the Park, the Brighton Essential - and hopefully Glastonbury."

Kelly: "We're releasing '1,000 Trees' as a single in August, and our first album will be released in September which will be called 'Word gets around'. We're off to Scandinavia for six days and to America for a few days in September, mainly to promote the records."

Wasn't '1,000 Trees' a single before? It had loads of airplay on Radio 1 at the end of last year.

Kelly: "No, that was a demo of a live session from Maida Vale, it's never been released before. 'Tramp's vest' was released before, as a promo, about 1,000 copies. But 1,000 Trees was only a demo, which was one of the reasons we got signed in the first place. The demo version is still on Virgin Airlines, on one of the in-flight compilations. Nobody actually owns the recording, so I don't know how it got on there. We should be getting the money for it!"

You've done a lot of touring over the past six months. What was it like playing with the Manics in 2000 capacity venues?

Kelly: "It was good. December was weird, we supported everyone from Kenickie to The Who, from playing to 17 year olds to 50 year olds, and the Manics were somewhere in-between. It was a good time to get experience of playing to different sorts of audiences. Playing to big crowds was weird at first. The Manchester Apollo was a nightmare because there was a power cut, in the middle of 'Traffic', of all songs! We didn't get a soundcheck at any of the Manics' shows - we had to walk on at 6.55, plug in and play as people were arriving."

Richard: "But the crowds were great and the Manics were great too - really nice people."

Do you miss Aberdare when you're away?

Kelly: "Yes and no. I did at first, now when I go home I get really bored because I'm not doing anything. I like the people there but some of them have changed towards us. You go into a pub and if you don't buy someone a pint you're a tight fucker, if you buy one you're a flash bastard, so you're better off not going in there! 90% of them are brilliant, it's just the odd few that are jealous and slag us off."

Richard: "It's a good break to go up to London, see what's happening, but it's good to go back home because there's a lot of bullshit and fake people in London. Going back home brings you back down to earth, because all these people in London will suck your cock, and you go back home and people don't give a shit about it, they've known you from day one. That's the good thing about it, they keep you on the ground."

Ever thought of moving to London?

Richard: "No. I wouldn't mind buying a little flat in London, just so you don't have to stay in hotels all the time. But I've just bought a house back in Wales so I don't plan on moving for a while."

Kelly: "I like London, but I don't think I'd live there. I'd like to go there more often. When I'm up there I don't want to go home. The only reason I go home is to see my mother and father. I wish I could get my mother and father not to work in a factory - they're working long hours for ridiculous money so I'd like to help them. I'd love to give them money to go on holiday. Aberdare is a really nice place to live, it's really quiet, but too quiet sometimes. You get used to doing other stuff, but you can't have your peace there because the door's knocking all the time and there's little kids going 'can you sign my shirt' which is great but when you've just come home at 6 in the morning and they're knocking at 9.30 going to school it's a bit much."

What makes you really happy?

Richard: "Just waking up every morning and knowing I'm still alive, and a good smoke at night before I go to bed - that's what makes me happy."

Kelly: "That's very philosophical! That's a really weird question! Going home to see my parents, and having them feeling really chuffed about me. I've started talking to my brothers a lot more because we've got more to talk about. What pisses me off is that people don't talk to me as much any more. They only talk about music. When you're away it's all you talk about, then when you go home it's all they want to talk about because they haven't seen you for so long so it's constant music music music."

Steve Lamacq reviewed "Local Boy in the Photograph' in Melody Maker recently. It wasn't a very flattering review - he said "at another paper we had a running gag about writing useless, meticulous, redundant detail into the review, like someone's hair growing an inch since their last tour. Stereophonics deal with that kind of minutiae all the time - that's all they write about, the day-to-day grind of working class life. It's pretty grim stuff, totally glamour free". What did you think of that?

Richard: "I didn't see it. But you've got to write about real things that people can relate to, not songs fantasising about things you can never have."

Kelly: "I couldn't make head nor tale of it. Did you see the Simon Williams review? He said I look like a wombat! And Everett True said we're another band that sound like Oasis. And someone else said we sound like "dad rock". So we haven't had a very good two weeks. But in Cardiff Bay we pissed all over Paul Weller 'cos he was fucking rubbish, he was really fucking boring. He did seven songs whose guitar solos went on for hours. It was good though because he came and watched us and we were the only band he watched so the word must have got around to Paul Weller."

Are lyrics important?

Richard: "Nowadays? I think yes. To Stereophonics, yes. Kelly writes really good lyrics, and lyrics are very important to the band, and without that we wouldn't be where we are today."

Kelly: "Lyrics are very important to me. It's not about depressing things, I write about things that I know about. For instance, 'Too Many Sandwiches' is completely sarcastic, about a family wedding. I just want to do a laugh part and a cry part, and do both things. I don't want to be a manic-depressive. I wrote the song five years ago and then the record company wanted to release it as a single."

Although "Local Boy" is about someone dying, it's not a depressing tune...

Kelly: "It's about a friend who jumped in front of a train, but it doesn't say 'the boy jumped in front of the train', it's about people remembering the boy."

Richard: "You can write a song about death, about people dying, you don't have to write it in a morbid way, using all minor chords - you can do it in a happy way: You've got to explore that aspect of the music as well. That's the way we write. If you can make people cry, and make them laugh - that's all we're in it for."

Kelly: "If you analyse the words to 'More Life in a Tramp's vest', it's about progress making things worse, supermarkets taking over the markets and pedestrianised streets. If I went into it in black and white it'd be a really fucking depressing song, but because it's done in the way that people talk... I write the words through characters rather than in black and white."

Could you write something irrelevant? Like Doctor and the Medics?

Richard: "I don't think we'd lower ourselves! You've got to have bands like that around, but we write about real things because we see real things. We don't go round stoned or tripping our boxes off, seeing pink elephants flying through the air or anything like that, we just see things that have happened, characters around our village, and write about them."

The way Steve Lamacq wrote the review was as if to say that you do that sort of thing all the time, which of course is not true.

Kelly: "Bob Dylan said: 'Don't criticise what you can't understand'.

If you hadn't been in a band, what would you have liked to be?

Richard: "I'd have set up my own business doing God knows what. I'm trying to write a book about what's happening to us now, how it all started and all that."

Kelly: "I did scriptwriting in college for three years and graphic design. It's just ideas again. '1,000 Trees' came from the back of a matchbox when I was ten. I made up a story around that phrase because I thought it was a really good phrase, and I did an animation sequence for it at college.

"Before the band started getting successful I was about to start work for the BBC writing scripts, so I'd like to do film making and script writing. But there's not a lot of industry in Britain, so I'd like that to get better and I'd like to do that."

If there was a film of your life, who would you like to play you?

Richard: "Val Kilmer or Brad Pitt."

Kelly: "Johnny Depp. I'd like to look like Johnny Depp! But, really, I'm very happy with what I am. I've got my health, I'm very happy with the situation I'm in, I'm happy that I can do a job that I love and get paid for it."

What did you think of the election?

Kelly: "It was the first time I've ever voted, and I've won! I remember Thatcher winning when I was a kid and I was aware that she was the first woman prime minister. But I'm quite ignorant about that sort of stuff because I hardly ever read. I read my first book the other day I've only read kids books when I was growing up, I can't read, I get really... It's weird because I love writing but I can't read, which is good in a way because I'm not influenced by the way other people write and I just write it. I should read because you learn a lot more that way."

If you could wave a magic wand and make absolutely anything happen, what would you make happen?

Kelly: "I'd make my mother have enough money to live the rest of her life without having to go to work. And my dad."

Richard: "I'd create a Welsh parliament to separate us from England and the UK. I would have voted Plaid Cymru but I didn't have a ballot card. So either that or a car would do, because I haven't got a car."

You wouldn't create world peace and an end to famine?

Kelly: "It can't be done, can it? There's loads of people with the money to do it but they can't be bothered because they're just too greedy."

Do you think that where and how a band grew up has an effect on the type of songs they write? Spin magazine did an article about Newport being the new Seattle and said "what it mainly comes down to is economics: most of the Welsh speaking bands are middle class. Where 60ft Dolls snarl nihilistically 'dying's easy', Gorky's sing in a sweet falsetto, 'isn't it a lovely day for love?'" Is there any truth in that, do you think? Could it also be said that someone from a working class background who's not led a very privileged life might also choose to write songs based on fantasy, in order to escape from how crap everything is?

Richard: "Newport just has the one venue, so there's no 'scene' there at all. They think of Wales as a city rather than a country. Anyone can write about what they want. We're not ashamed of coming from Wales. We're proud of where we're from, we're not interested in where people are from. We're from Wales, and we're staying there."

Stereophonics' star is rising so high at the moment it seems as if things really couldn't get any better. Rest assured that you're going to be hearing a lot more of them in the future; Stereophonics are on their way to very big success.